Chapter VIII: Introduction (7)

A national organisation is not only more effective on account of its strength and extent, but also on account of its freedom from party spirit. Its members are bound to sit down by the side of those who differ from themselves, and are thus bound to take a wider view of their work. They are all under the control of the same body which controls the nation, and they thus serve only one master. A public library, for instance, which is worked by the municipality will be more useful than one worked by a society or a company. The books will not be chosen to promulgate the doctrines of a sect so much as to extend knowledge, and its management will not be so arranged as to please any large subscriber so much as to please the people. Instead, therefore, of starting societies, it would be wise for social reformers to throw their strength into national organisations.

The Board of Guardians might thus be made efficient in giving relief. From its funds and with the help of its organisation a much more perfect scheme of emigration could be worked than by private societies whose funds are limited and whose inquiries are incomplete. The workhouse might provide such a system of industrial training as would fit the inmates on their discharge both to take and to enjoy labour. It is as much by others’ neglect as by their own fault that so many strong men and women drift to the relieving officer, unable to earn a living because they have never been taught to work. The poor-law infirmary, too, properly organised under doctors and nurses and visited by ladies, might be the school of purity and the home of discipline in which the fallen might be helped to find strength. The pauper schools in which, by the service of devoted officers, education could be perfected might do better work than the schools and orphanages which depend on voluntary offerings and often aim at narrow issues. The Guardians, moreover, having the power over out-relief, have in their hands a great instrument for good or evil. Rightly used, the power gives to many who are weak a new strength, as they realise that refusal implies respect, and that a system of relief which encourages one to bluster and another to cringe cannot be good.

The School Board might, in the same way, be made to cover the aims of the educationalists. As managers of individual schools these reformers could bring themselves into close connection with teachers and children. They could show the teachers what is implied in knowledge, introduce books of wider views, and they could visit the children’s homes, arrange for their holidays, and see to their pleasures. Much more important is it that the schools under the nation’s control should be good than that special schools should be started to achieve certain results. In connection, too, with the Board it is possible to have night classes, which should be in reality classes in higher education, and means both of promoting friendship and gaining knowledge.

Then there are the municipal bodies, the Vestries and Boards of Works, who largely control the conditions which people of goodwill strive to improve. It rests with these bodies to build habitable houses and to see that those built are habitable, and they are responsible for the lighting and cleaning of the streets. It is in their power to open libraries and reading-rooms, to make for every neighbourhood a common drawing-room, to build baths so that cleanliness is no longer impossible, and perhaps even to supply music in open spaces. It is by their will, or rather by their want of will, that the houses exist in which the young are tempted to their ruin, and it only needs their energy to work a reform at which purity societies vainly strive.

Lastly, there is the national organisation which is the greatest of all, the Church, the society of societies, the body whose object it is to carry out the aim of all societies, to be the centre of charitable effort, to spread among high and low the knowledge of the Highest, to enforce on all the supremacy of duty over pleasure, and to tell everywhere the Gospel which is joy and peace. If the Church fulfilled its object, there would be no need of societies or of sects. If the Church fails, it is because it is allowed to remain under the control of a clerical body; its charity tends thus to become limited, its ideas of duty are affected by its organisation, and it preaches not what is taught by the Holy Spirit, who is ‘the Giver of life’ now as in the past, but it teaches only what its governing body remembers of the past teaching of that Spirit. All this would be changed if the people were put in the place of this clerical body. The Church would then be the expression of the national will to do good, to distribute the best and to please God.

Because the national organisations are so vast, and because association with them is the most adequate check on the growth of party spirit, it is by their means that the best work can be done. The cost involved may at times be great. It may be hard to endure the slow movement of a public body while the majority of that body is being educated; it may be bitter work for the ardent Christian to endure the officialism of a public institution; it may seem wrong that profane hands should mould the Church organisation; but the cost is well endured. The national organisations do exist, and will exist, if not for good, then for evil. They are vast, a part of the life of the nation, and the cost which is paid for association with them is often the cost of the self-assertion which, if it sometimes is the cause of success, is also the cause of shame.

Further, at this moment when many methods of social reform offer themselves, it seems to me that all would be wise to remember that the only test of progress is in the development of character. Institutions, societies, laws, count for nothing unless they tend to make people stronger to choose the good and refuse the evil. Redistribution of wealth would be of little service if in the process many became dishonest. A revolution would be no progress which put one selfish class in the place of another. The test, then, which all must apply to what they are doing is its effect on character, and this test rigorously applied will make safe all methods both new and old. When it is applied there will be a strange shifting of epithets. Things called ‘great’ will seem to be small, and efforts passed by in contempt will be seen to be greatest.

The man in East London who, judged by this test, stands among the highest is, I think, one who, belonging to no society, committed to no scheme of reform, has worked out plan after plan till all have been lost in greater plans. Years before the evils lately advertised were known, he had discovered them, and had begun to apply remedies unthought of by the impatient. He has won no name, made no appeal, started no institution, and founded no society, but by him characters have been formed which are the strength of homes in which force is daily gathering for right. The women, too, whose work has borne best fruit are those who, having the enthusiasm of humanity, have had patience to wait while they work. After ten years such women now see families who have been raised from squalor to comfort, and are surrounded by girls to whom their friendship has given the best armour against temptation.

That work of these has been great because it has strengthened character, and there are other fields in which like work may be done. Conditions have a large influence on character, and the hardships of life may be as prejudicial to the growth of character as the luxuries. They, therefore, who work to get good houses and good schools, who provide means of intercourse and high teaching, who increase the comforts of the poor, may also claim to be strengthening character. One I know who by patient service on boards has greatly changed some of the conditions under which 70,000 people have to live. He has never advertised his methods nor collected money for his system; he has simply given up pleasure and holidays to be regular at meetings; he has at the meetings, by patience and good temper, won the ear of his fellows, while by his inquiries into details and by his thorough mastery of his subject he has won their respect. A change has thus been made on account of which many have more energy, many more comfort, and many more hope.

One other I can remember who, even more unknown and unnoticed, came to live in East London. He gathered a few neighbours together, and gradually in talk opened to them a new pleasure for idle hours. They found such delight in seeing and hearing new things that they told others, and now there are many spending their evenings in ways that increase knowledge, who do so because one man aimed at providing means of intercourse and high teaching.

Those whose aim it is to reform the material conditions in which life is spent may, as well as those who teach, claim to be strengthening character, but the admission of their claims must depend on the way in which they have worked. They themselves can alone tell how far in pursuit of their aims they have forgotten the effect of their means upon character, and how those means are now represented by people whose growth they have helped or hindered. Teachers are not above reformers, and reformers are not above teachers. The people must be taught, and conditions must be changed. It is for those who teach as well as for those who try to change conditions to judge themselves by the effect their methods have on character. If striving and crying they have avoided impatience and allowed time for the growth of originality, if working silently they have indeed done something else than find faults in others’ methods, they may be said to have secured the good and avoided the loss.

SAMUEL A. BARNETT.

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XII.

_PRACTICABLE SOCIALISM._[1]

[1] Reprinted, by permission, from the _Nineteenth Century_ of April
1883.

Some time ago I met in a tramcar a well-known American clergyman. ‘Ah!’ said he, ‘ten years’ work in New York as a minister at large made me a Christian socialist.’ The remark illustrates my own experience.

Ten years ago my wife and I came to live in East London. The study of political economy and some familiarity with the condition of the poor had shown us the harm of doles given in the shape either of charity or of out-relief. We found that gifts so given did not make the poor any richer, but served rather to perpetuate poverty. We came therefore to East London determined to war against a system of relief which, ignorantly cherished by the poor, meant ruin to their possibilities of living an independent and satisfying life. The work of some devoted men on the Board of Guardians, helped by the members of the Charity Organisation Society, has enabled us to see the victory won.

In this Whitechapel Union there is no out-relief, and ‘charity’ is given only to those who, by their forethought or their self-sacrifice, awaken those feelings of respect and gratitude which find a natural expression in giving and receiving presents. The result has not disappointed our hope. The poor have learnt to help themselves, and have found self-help a stronger bond by which to keep the home together than the dole of the relieving officer or of the district visitor. The rates have been saved 6,000_l._ a year, and that sum remains in the pockets of ratepayers to be spent as wages for work, and by the new system of relief the poor are not only more independent but distinctly richer. The old system of relief has been conquered, and the result we desired has been won. What is that result? With what a state of things does the new system leave us face to face?

We find ourselves face to face with the labourer earning 20_s._ a week. He has but one room for himself, his wife, and their family of three or four children. By self-denial, by abstinence from drink, by daily toil, he and his wife are able to feed and clothe the children. Pleasure for him and for them is impossible; he cannot afford to spend a sixpence on a visit to the park, nor a penny on a newspaper or a book. Holidays are out of the question, and he must see those he loves languish without fresh air, and sometimes without the doctor’s care, though air and care are necessities of life. The future does not attract his gaze and give him restful hours; as he thinks of ‘the years that are before’ he cannot think of a time when work will be done, and he will be free to go and come and rest as he will. In the labourer’s future there are only the workhouse and the grave. He hardly dares to think at all, for thought suggests that to-morrow a change in trade or a master’s whim may throw him out of work and leave him unable to pay for rent or for food. The labourers--and it is to be remembered that they form the largest class in the nation--have few thoughts of joy and little hope of rest; they are well off if in a day they can obtain ten hours of the dreariest labour, if they can return to a weather-proof room, if they can eat a meal in silence while the children sleep around, and then turn into bed to save coal and light; they are well off indeed, only because they are stolid and indifferent. Their lives all through the days and years slope into a darkness which is not ‘quieted by hope.’

If the wages be 40_s._ a week the condition is still one to depress those who on Sunday bless God for their creation. The skilled artisan, having paid rent and club money and provided household necessaries, has no margin out of which to provide for pleasure, for old age, or even for the best medical skill. There can be for him no quiet hours with books or pictures, while his children or friends make music for his solace. He can invite no friends for a Christmas dance; he can wander in the thought of no future of pleasure or of rest. England is the land of sad monuments. The saddest monument is, perhaps, ‘the respectable working man,’ who has been erected in honour of Thrift. His brains, which might have shown the world how to save men, have been spent in saving pennies; his life, which might have been happy and full, has been dulled and saddened by taking ‘thought for the morrow.’

This ought not so to be, and this will not always be. The question therefore naturally occurs, ‘Why should not the State provide what is needed?’ This is the question to which the Socialist is ready with many a response. Some of his suggestions, even if good, are impracticable. It may be urged, for instance, that relief works should be started, that State workshops should be opened, and starvation made impossible. Or it may be urged that the land should be nationalised and large incomes divided. To such suggestions, and to many like them, it is a sufficient answer that they are impracticable. Their attainment, even were it desirable, is not within measurable distance, and to press them is likely to distract attention from what is possible. If a boy who goes out ‘in the interest of the fox’ can spoil a hunt by dragging a herring across the scent, a well-meaning socialist may hinder reform by drawing a fair fancy across the line of men’s imagination. All real progress must be by growth; the new must be a development of the old, and not a branch added on from another root. A change which does not fit into and grow out of things that already exist is not a practicable change, and such are some of the changes now advocated by socialists upon platforms. The condition of the people is one not to be long endured, but the answer to the question, ‘What can the State do?’ must be a practicable one, or we shall waste time, make mistakes, rouse up anarchy, and destroy much that is good.

Facing, then, the whole position, we see that among the majority of Englishmen life is poor; that among the few life is made rich. The thoughts stored in books, the beauty rescued from nature and preserved in pictures, the intercourse made possible by means of steam locomotion, stir powers in the few which lie asleep in the many. If it be true, as the poet says, that men ‘live by admiration,’ it is the few who live, for it is they who know that which is worth admiration.

It seems a hard thing--but I believe that it is on the line of truth--to say that the dock labourer cannot live the life of Christ; he may, by loving and trusting, live a higher life than that lived by many rich men, but he cannot live the highest life possible to men of this time. To live the life of Christ is to make manifest the truth and to enjoy the beauty of God. The labourer who knows nothing of the law of life which has been revealed by the discoveries of science, who knows nothing which, by admiration, can lift him out of himself, cannot live the highest life of his day, as Christ lived the highest life of His day. The social reformer must go alongside the Christian missionary, if he be not himself the Christian missionary.

Facing, then, the whole position, we see first the poverty of life which besets the majority of the people, and further we recognise that the remedy must be one which shall be practicable, and shall not affect the sense of independence. It is difficult to state any principle which such remedy should follow. If it be said that men’s _needs_, not their _wants_, may be supplied by others’ help, then it is necessary to set up an arbitrary definition and to define _wants_ as those good things which a man recognises to be necessary for his life, and _needs_ as those good things the good of which is unseen by the individual to whose well-being, in the interests of the whole, they are necessary. Food and clothing would thus be an example of a man’s _wants_, education of his _needs_; and it might, according to this definition, be a statement of a principle to say that the remedy for the sadness of English labour is to be sought in letting the State provide for a man’s needs while he is left to provide for his own wants. It is, however, a statement which, depending on an arbitrary and shifting definition, would not be understood. If, as another statement of a principle, it be said that means of life may be provided, while for means of livelihood a man must work, then it becomes difficult to draw a distinction, for some means of life are also means of livelihood. There is no principle as yet stated according to which limits of State interference may be defined.

The better plan is to consider the laws which are accepted as laws of England, and to study how, by their development, a remedy may be found. On the statute book there are many socialistic laws. The Poor Law, the Education Act, the Established Church, the Land Act, the Artisans’ Dwellings Act, and the Libraries Act are socialistic.

The Poor Law provides relief for the destitute and medical care for the poor. By a system of outdoor relief it has won the condemnation of many who care for the poor, and see that outdoor relief robs them of their energy, their self-respect, and their homes. There is no reason, however, why the Poor Law should not be developed in more healthy ways. Pensions of 8_s._ or 10_s._ a week might be given to every citizen who had kept himself until the age of 60 without workhouse aid. If such pensions were the right of all, none would be tempted to lie to get them, nor would any be tempted to spy and bully in order to show the undesert of applicants. So long as relief is a matter of desert, and so long as the most conscientious relieving officers are liable to err, there must be mistakes both on the side of indulgence and of neglect. The one objection to out-relief, which is at present recognised by the poor, is that the system puts it in the power of the relieving officer to act as judge in matters of which he must be ignorant, so that he gives relief to the careless or crafty and passes over those who in self-respect hide their trouble. Pensions, too, it may be added, would be no more corrupting to the labourer who works for his country in the workshop than for the civil servant who works for his country at the desk, and the cost of pensions would be no greater than is the cost of infirmaries and almshouses. In one way or another the old and the poor are now kept by those who are richer, and the present method is not a cheap one.

Many men and women fail because they do not know how to work. The workhouses might be made schools of industry. If the ignorant could be detained in workhouses until they had learnt the use of a tool and the pleasure of work, these establishments would become technical schools of the kind most needed, and yearly add a large sum to the wealth of the nation.

Lastly, the whole system of medical relief might be so organised as to provide for every citizen the skill and care necessary for his cure in sickness. As it is, no labourer nor artisan is expected to make such provision, as there are hospitals, infirmaries, and dispensaries to supply his wants. By application or by letter he can gain admission to any of these, and he is expected to be grateful. Medical relief is thus supplied; to organise the relief is merely to take another step along a path already entered, and properly organised the relief need not pauperise. The necessity of begging for a letter, the obligation of humbly waiting at hospital or dispensary doors, the chance that real needs may be unskilfully treated--these are the things which degrade a man. If all the dispensaries, hospitals, and infirmaries were properly ordered, controlled by the State, and open as a matter of right to all comers, it would be possible for every citizen at the dispensary to get the necessary advice and medicine, and thence, if he would, to enter a hospital without any sense of degradation. The national health is the nation’s interest, and without additional outlay it could be brought about that every man, woman, and child should have the medical treatment necessary to their condition. The rich would still get sufficient advantage, but it would no longer happen that the lives most useful to the nation would be left to the care of practitioners who, however kind and devoted, cannot provide either adequate drugs or spare the time for necessary study when for visit and drugs the charge cannot be more than 1_s._ or 1_s._ 6_d._

By some such development as these suggested, without any break with old traditions, without any fear of pauperising the people, the Poor Law might help to make the life of England healthier and more restful.

In the same way the Education Act might be developed in conjunction with the Church and the Universities to make the life of England wiser and fuller. A complete system of national education ought to take the child from the nursery, pass him through high schools to the University, and then provide him with means to develop the higher life of which all are capable. Some steps have already been made in this direction, but secondary schools or high schools are still needed, and the Church organisation will have to be made popular, so as to represent, not the opinions of a mediæval sect, but the opinions of nineteenth-century Englishmen. Schools in which it would be possible to learn the facts and thoughts new to this age, Churches in which, by ministers in sympathy with their hearers and by the use of forms native of the times, men could be lightened with light upon their souls, would add an untold quantity to the sum of national life.

Alongside of such development much might be done with the Libraries Act and with the powers which local bodies have to keep up parks and gardens. It would be as easy to find in every neighbourhood a site for the people’s playground as it is for the workhouse, and all might have, what is now the privilege of the rich, a place for quiet, the sight of green grass and fair flowers. It would be as easy to build a library as an infirmary. In every parish there might be rooms lighted and warmed, where cosy chairs and well-filled shelves might invite the weary man to wander in other times and climes with other mates and minds. In every locality there might be a hall where music, or pictures, or the talk of friends would call into action sleeping powers, and by admiration arouse the deadened to life. The best things gain nothing by being made private property; a fine picture possessed by the State will give the individual who looks at it as much pleasure as if he possessed it. It is no idle dream that the Crystal Palace might become a national institution, open free for the enjoyment of all, dedicated to the service of the people, for the recreation of their lives, by means of music, knowledge, and beauty.

If still it be said that none of these good things touch the want most recognised, the need of better dwellings, then we have in the Artisans’ Dwellings Act a law which only requires wise handling to be made to serve this purpose. A local board has now the power to pull down rookeries and to let the ground at a price which will enable honest builders to erect decent dwellings at low rents. Unwisely handled, the law may only destroy existing dwellings and put heavy compensation into the pockets of unworthy landlords and fees into those of active officials; wisely handled, the same law might at no very great expense replace the houses which now ruin the life of the poor and disgrace the English name.

Thus it is--and other laws, such as the Irish Land Act, are open to the same process of development--that without revolution reform could be wrought. I can conceive a great change in the condition of the people, worked out in our own generation, without any revolution or break with the past. With wages at their present rate I can yet imagine the houses made strong and healthy, education and public baths made free, and the possibility of investing in land made easy. I can imagine that, without increase of their private wealth, the poor might have in libraries, music-halls, and flower gardens that on which wealth is spent. I can imagine the youth of the nation made strong by means of fresh air and the doctor’s care, the aged made restful by means of honourable pensions. I can imagine the Church as the people’s Church, its buildings the halls where they are taught by their chosen teachers, the meeting-places where they learn the secret of union and brotherly love, the houses of prayer where in the presence of the Best they lift themselves into the higher life of duty and devotion to right--all this I can imagine, because it is practicable. I cannot imagine that which must be reached by new departures and so-called Continental practices. Any scheme, whatever it may promise in the future, which involves revolution in the present is impracticable, and any flirting with it is likely to hinder the progress of reform.

But now there rises the obvious objection, ‘All this will cost much money;’ ‘Free education means 1_d._ in the pound; libraries and museums mean 2_d._;’ ‘The suggested changes would absorb more than 1_s._; the ratepayers could not stand it.’

I agree; the present ratepayers could not pay heavier rates. There must be other means of raising the money. Some scheme for graduated taxing might be possible; but perhaps I may be told that such a scheme means the introduction of a new principle, and is as much outside my present scope as the scheme for nationalisation of the land. Well, there remains the wealth locked up in the endowed charities, the increase which would be brought to the revenue by a new assessment of the land-tax, and the sum which might be saved by abolishing sinecures and waste in every public office.

The wealth of the endowed charities has never been realised, and if that amount be not reduced in paying for elementary education, it might do much to make life happier. If men saw to what uses this money could be put, they would not be so ready to back up an agitation raised on the School Board to get hold of this money for School Board work. They would say, ‘No; the schools are safe; in some way they must be provided and paid for. We won’t shield the Board from attacks of ratepayers by giving them our money to spend; we want that for things which the board cannot provide.’ There is also a vast sum which might be got by a new assessment--which in some cases would be a re-imposition--of the land-tax, and by a closer scrutiny into the ways of public offices. The land-tax returns the same amount as it returned more than two hundred years ago, while rents have gone on increasing. The abuses of sinecures and of useless officials are patent to all who know anything of public work in small areas; and it is possible that what is done in the vestry, on a small scale, is developed by the atmosphere of grander surroundings into grander proportions. The parish reformer can put his finger on one or two officials who are not wanted, but whose salary of a few hundreds seems hardly worth the saving; perchance the parliamentary reformer might put his finger on unnecessary officials whose salaries amount to thousands. Out of the sums thus gained or saved a great fund could be entrusted to the governing body of London, and the responsibility would then lie with the electors to choose men capable of administering vast wealth, so as to give to all the means of developing their highest possibilities.

Perhaps, though, it is unwise to go into these details and attempt to show how the necessary money may be raised. In England poverty and wealth have met together. It is the fellow-citizens of the poor who see them in East London without joy and without hope. The money which is wasted on fruitless pleasures and fruitless effort would be sufficient to do all, and more than has been suggested in this paper. There is no want of the necessary money, and much is yearly spent--some of it in vain--on efforts on societies or on armies, which promise to save the people. When it is clearly seen that wealth may provide some of the means by which their fellow-countrymen may be saved from dreariness and sickness if not from sin, then the difficulty as to the way in which the money may be raised will not long hinder action.

The ways and means of improving the condition of the people are at hand. It is time we gave up the game of party politics and took to real work. It is time we gave up speculation and did what waits the doing. Here are men and women. Are they what they might be? Are they like the Son of Man? How can they be helped to reach the standard of their manhood? That is the question of the day; before that of Ireland, Egypt, or the Game Laws. The answer to that question will divide, by other than by party lines, the leaders of men. He who answers it so as to weld old and new together will be the statesman of the future.

SAMUEL A. BARNETT.

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XIII.

_THE WORK OF RIGHTEOUSNESS._[1]

[1] A sermon preached on Advent Sunday, November 27, 1887, at St. Jude’s Church, Whitechapel, before a body of men and women engaged in the work of social reform.

‘If I find ... fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare
all the place for their sakes.’--_Genesis_ xviii. 26.

My first thought, as I face you this evening, is of your variety--of your different classes and creeds, of your various communities, and your various views. My second thought is of your common object, of the one longing--the voice of your real selves--which converts variety into unity. You would save the city. Like Abraham, you have seen doom impending; like Buddha, you have seen sights in your daily walk which make the life of ease impossible. You have met poverty, ignorance, and sin.

You have met Poverty. You know families whose weekly income is under the price of a bottle of good wine; men dwarfed in stature, crippled in body, the inmates of a hospital for want of sufficient food; women aged and hardened, broken in spirit because their homes are too narrow for cleanliness or for comfort; children who die because they cannot have the care which preserves the children of the rich.

You have met Ignorance. You know men and women gifted with divine powers, powers of clear sight and deep feeling, you have seen such people taking shallow rhetoric for reason, delighting in exaggeration, clamouring for force as a remedy, adopting swindlers as leaders, making a game--a Sunday afternoon’s excitement--of matters which should tear their hearts, killing time which might have been fruitful in thought and joy and love. ‘The future belongs to the man who refuses to take himself seriously,’ says the mocking philosopher. The ignorance which accepts the teaching, and which goes with a light heart to agitate or to repress agitation, is a sight to destroy anyone’s ease of mind.

You have met Sin, the degradation which comes of selfishness. In West London it often hides under fine trappings. Culture covers a multitude of sins. In the exquisitively ordered banquet intemperance and self-indulgence are unnoticed; in the phraseology of the office greed and selfishness pass as political economy; and in the polished talk of books and of society impurity loses its true colour. You, though, are familiar with East London, and here you see sin without its trappings; you know that intemperance--over-eating and over-drinking--means a brutalised nature; you know that greed is cruelty, and that impurity is destructive both of reason and of feeling. You have seen the victims of sin, that drunkard’s home, the gambler’s hell, and the sweater’s shop. You know that the wages of sin is death, and that no culture can give to Mammon any nobility or warm his heart with any spark of unselfish joy.

Poverty, Ignorance, Sin--these threaten the city. Your common longing is to avert its doom. Our fathers nourished a like longing. They hoped in Free Trade, the Suffrage, the National Education, and they have been disappointed.

Free Trade has, indeed, greatly increased wealth; the number of the comfortable has been multiplied, but it is a question whether, in the same proportion, the number of the uncomfortable has not also been multiplied. Our England is larger than the England of fifty years ago, but a larger body--like a giraffe’s throat--may only provide a larger space for pain! At any rate, Free Trade, which has given us cheap bread, has _not_ solved the problem of the unemployed.

The extension of the Suffrage, again, for which our fathers strove, has had good results; but the example of later parliaments and the growing tendency to legislate by demonstration hardly justifies their hopes. Our fathers held that the possession of the Suffrage would be effective to destroy Ignorance; they thought that responsibility would develop the seriousness which is necessary to knowledge. They--like other good men who need God’s forgiveness--fed Ignorance with abuse of opponents; with exaggerations, with party cries, they bribed Ignorance to establish its own executioner; and now Ignorance is too much puffed up by flattery, too much enriched by bribes, to yield to the voice which from the register and polling booth says, ‘England expects every man’ to vote according to his conscience, and then to submit to the common will.

Lastly, the passing of the Education Act seemed to many to be the beginning of a new age. Schools were rapidly built, money was freely voted, and the children were compelled to attend. The Education Act has not, however, taught the people what is due to themselves or to others. Greed is not eradicated because its form is changed, and, though criminals may be fewer, gambling is as degrading as thieving, and oppression legally exerted over the weak is as cruel as the illegal blow. The children do not leave school with the self-respect born of consciousness of powers of heart and brain and hand, nor with the humanity born of knowledge of others’ burdens. It seems, indeed, as if their chief belief was in the value of competition, and their chief aptitude a skill in satisfying an inspector with the least possible amount of work. At any rate, at the end of twenty years, when a generation has been through the schools, our streets are filled with a mob of careless youths, and our labour market is overstocked with workers whose work is not worth 4_d._ an hour.

Poverty, Ignorance and Sin threaten the city. Free Trade, the Suffrage, the Education Act have been tried, and the doom still impends. What is to be done? The principle of true action lies, I think, imbedded in the old Jewish tale. It is not laws and institutions which save a city--it is persons. Institutions are good, just in so far as they are vivified by personal action; laws are good just in so far as they allow for the free play of person on person. There may be need of reform in institutions and in laws, so as to give to all an open career and equality of opportunity, but it is persons who save; and if to-day fifty--a company of righteous--men could be found in London, the city might be spared and saved.

In support of this position I would offer two considerations. (1) The common mind is now scientific. Professor Huxley, in summing up the results of fifty years of science, claims the creation of a new habit of thought as a greater achievement than any material invention. The common man in the street no longer expects a miracle or worships a theory as men once worshipped the theory of social contract; he asks for a fact. The fact, therefore, that a neighbour is righteous does most to extend righteousness. He who knows a just man is likely to give a fair day’s wage and do a fair day’s work, to live simply and tell the truth, and it is bad pay and bad work, luxury and lying, which do most to make poverty. He who knows a wise man is likely to search after what is hidden in thought and things, and it is carelessness of what is out of sight which makes ignorance. He who knows a good man is likely to have a passion for honour, for purity, for humanity, and it is the want of higher passion which makes sin.

The righteous man is in a real sense the master of the city. He, as Browning says, who ‘walked about and took account of all thought, said and acted’ was ‘the town’s true master.’ Were there in London a company of such righteous men, the power of Poverty, Ignorance, and Sin would be broken.

(2) I am often led to observe that taste is more powerful than interest. People remain on in situations, hold opinions, and adopt habits which are against their interests, because they are more in accordance with their tastes. They _like_ the surroundings, they _like_ the life, and liking is an armour which resists the strong lance of the economist. Now why is it that taste overpowers interest, and that habit is stronger than law? It is because taste comes through persons and is spread by contact. The habits or tastes, therefore, which lie at the root of Poverty, Ignorance, and Sin may best be met by the formation of other habits, which come through the example of persons, by the contact of man with man. Righteous men are therefore necessary--men who would live simply and share their luxury, whose gain would not mean another’s loss, who would work for their bread, who would do justice on wrong-doers, show mercy to the weak, and walk humbly before God. The habits of respectable people, the waste, the idleness, the sensuousness are writ large in the poverty, ignorance, and sin of the disreputable. Fifty--a company of righteous men, rich or poor, setting an example of generosity and honesty, living Christ’s life in contact with others--might create habits in them which would take the place of the old bad habits.

The question is sometimes asked, What has been the secret of the success of Christianity? Its basis is not a system but a life. Jesus, the Righteous One, drew to Himself the righteous. They that loved the light came to the light and found the universe instinct with life. Like leaven, the disciples leavened the mass. Christianity, in distinction from other systems, gives no scheme of belief and promises no paradise of plenty--it says instead, ‘The kingdom is within you.’ ‘When you do right you have all that God can give.’ ‘The joy of Christ’s is the highest joy, and His is the joy of the righteous.’ Christianity spreads, if it spreads at all, by pointing to a life.

To you, then, desiring to save the city, I take up the lesson as old as Abraham and illumined in Christ. I say, ‘Be righteous.’

Follow the light and do the right,
For man can half control his doom,
Till you find the deathless angel
Seated in the vacant tomb.

Now, as once more I look at you, I am conscious of you not only as fellow-workers seeking a common end, but as our friends. I remember how one has sorrow, another joy, and another pain; I know the anxiety which besets those whose dear ones are in danger, and the failing of heart which comes with age. I go farther, I remind you that I know some of your shortcomings, the impatience and the indolence, the will worship and the weakness, the too great speech and the too great silence. I think I know the difficulties of some as I am sure I know the goodwill of all of you. Remembering, then, that some are sad and some are tried, I say again, ‘Let everyone do that which he knows to be right.’ This implies self-examination, the deliberate questioning, ‘What do I think?’ ‘What am I doing?’ This means that everyone must settle what is the law he ought to obey, and then see how, in word, and thought, and deed, he keeps that law. Before the bar of conscience all must plead guilty, and by its judgment some will have to give up pleasures and some take up burdens.

‘Thy kingdom come,’ we pray. A sudden answer to that prayer would, it has been said, be like an earthquake’s shock.

‘Thy kingdom come.’ Let it come. At once rich men would be seen hurrying from their luxurious homes to restore profits wrongly and hardly taken, and poor men would busy themselves to put good work in the place of bad work. The conventional lie on the lady’s lip would become a bracing truth, and the political orator would stop his abuse to do justice to opponents. The idler would become busy, the frivolous serious, and the Church bountiful. For the pretence of work, the business about trifles, the everlasting money changing, the service of fashion, the gathering and squandering, the ‘aimless round in an eddy of purposeless dust’--for these there would be work which would leave men wiser and the world cleaner. Instead of scandal there would be interchange of thought, and instead of ‘bold print posters,’ calm statement of fact. The drunkards would give up drink, the indolent their ease, and no one again ‘would beat a horse or curse a woman.’ Men would become honest and quiet, they would give up envying and strife. Time spent on foolish books and in foolish talk would be devoted to study, and all obeying the call of duty would serve the common good. Such a change in character would bring about a change in things, and could, indeed, turn the world upside down. If the rich were as generous and just as Christ, if the poor were as honest and brave as Christ, there would not be much left which Socialism could add to the world’s comfort. Personal righteousness must lead to peace and plenty, and without personal righteousness peace and plenty are impossible. It is, then, for us, with our high hopes, with our common longing for the time when none shall hurt or destroy, when none shall be sad or sorrowing--it is for us to be righteous. We all know a right we do not do; whatever we do, whatever we give, whatever we are, there is more we ought to do, more we ought to give, and more we ought to be.

To-night, then, seeing the doom discernible amid the undoubted blessings of this Jubilee year; to-night, conscious that the progress (for which we thank God) has threatenings as well as promises, I preach, ‘Be righteous.’ No, it is not I who preach. It is Poverty, Ignorance, Sin. It is God Himself speaking through the pity and anger raised by the sight of these things. It is God Himself speaking through the reason raised by the thought of these things. It is God, the Almighty, the ‘I am,’ ‘Who is, and was, and will be,’ who says to-night, ‘Be righteous.’ If fifty righteous men, with Jesus as their Master, ‘feeding on Him by faith,’ would form a Holy Communion, the city might be spared for their sakes.

SAMUEL A. BARNETT.

PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
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------------------------------------------------------------------------

JUNE 1888.

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HISTORY, POLITICS, HISTORICAL MEMOIRS, &c.

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